Ta Ta For Now

According to this AZ Republic article, the monsoon season is officially over:

Monsoon 2006 has come to an end, with a longer run and more rain than normal but little of the flooding and wind damage often associated with the seasonal storms.

Drier air and lower temperatures throughout the state over the weekend hailed the end of the season and the beginning of autumn coming up Saturday.

The monsoon season, which got under way July 2, was everything a desert dweller could hope for. It featured plenty of rain, regular interruptions of unbearably hot days and few of the disasters often associated with the summer thunderstorm season.

You can read the entire article at your leisure, but the rainfall totals are always interesting:

Officially, 3.33 inches of rain fell between the beginning of July and the official end of the season Thursday.

Other parts of the Valley received as little as 2 inches and as much as 5 1/4 inches, testament to the spotty nature of monsoon rainstorms.

The official total made the season the wettest since the turn of the century. Monsoon 1999 had more than 5 inches of rain, but since then not even 2 inches has fallen at Sky Harbor International Airport during the season, until this year.

Normally, the season lasts 55 days and brings 2.54 inches of rain.

The official measurement is at Sky Harbor airport, and so this is what gets passed on to all the weather reporting agencies. But I'll remind our Morrison Ranch residents that we have a state-of-the-art weather station near our office at Higley and Elliot. And as The Water Expert pointed out a few weeks ago, we've gotten over 6 inches of rain so far this year.

Even though the monsoons are officially over, there is a prediction of rain tomorrow. I hope it's a gentle rain, if it comes. We've just overseeded our yard - a little earlier than usual - to get the rye established before our godson's October wedding brings houseguests.

And the temperatures? On our front porch this morning, it was 67 degrees! Fabulous.